Dementia SUCKS! I mean it REALLY FUCKING SUCKS.

I’m sitting here with my homework… staring at the pages… moving from topic to topic, not learning a damn thing because every few minutes I have to stop what I’m doing to repeat one of the same questions I’ve already answered 100 times today. I have exactly 11 minutes to post before my assignments are late again. I’m not going to make it. Better luck next assignment.

My brain is mush.

Hell, I feel like I might have dementia too most of the time because I can’t remember a damn thing from one day to the next. Can’t focus. Can’t think. Can’t not think. Just sit and stare or jump from one mindless task to the next (shopping, watching youtube videos, re-reading the same information, on Pinterest, et cetera ad nauseum), never really accomplishing anything that I set out to finish. So then I get to replay the endless list of shit that I didn’t get done.

That’s how it is. Every. Single. Day. Starts the same. Ends the same. If I’m not doing anything, it’s not because there’s nothing to do. It’s because I can’t focus enough to get it done so I sit almost paralyzed not doing anything at all. Sleeping too much or not sleeping at all. Never in between.

I know she can’t help it. I know she doesn’t mean to drive me crazy. I know she doesn’t mean to become fixated on things, repeat herself constantly, create horrible habits in the dog, or need help with even the most basic tasks. I know this isn’t the life she would have chosen.

Yet here we are.

Every morning I dread the sound of the creaking ceiling above my head because it means she’s up and running for the day. Gone are the days of sleeping in because she has to be supervised at all times, from the time she wakes until the time she sleeps. I say that I dread the sound… but I panic when I don’t hear it by 9am for fear that I may never hear it again. It’s the worst catch 22 ever!

I think about my mom every day as I navigate thru this hellish condition with Lillian. I remember how I used to think my mom was cranky a lot before she passed away… not always smiling or happy much at all. I remember wondering why she would be so short with my grandmother after she became her caretaker. I even thought she was just mean to her for no reason sometimes.

Now I know it wasn’t for no reason.

I feel myself becoming that surly, pessimistic, cranky woman I thought my mom was sometimes. As more and more days pass, I understand her and feel such a guilt for not being there for her. I should have checked on her more. Given her a break. Asked if there was anything I could do to lighten her load. I should have been there to relieve some of the stress that I now understand all too well. It makes me so sad to finally GET IT and it’s too late…

God, I’m so sorry, mom. How alone you must have felt while everybody else went about their lives (me included) and you were stuck caring for my grandmother day after day. It’s how I feel now. I feel it when I’m trying to unburden and I sense people start shutting down like “oh no, here we go again…” because I start telling yet another dementia story. It’s becoming easier to just fall back and not be the wet blanket and just stay to myself instead. Their eagerness to skip to another subject is obvious and I always try to take the hint and just move on quietly. I don’t think it’s intentional; they just don’t understand how difficult it is to feel overwhelmed all the time.

Not only that, everybody has shit. EVERYBODY HAS THEIR OWN SHIT. I know that, so I try not to burden friends with mine. I miss my brother. I really (really) miss Greg. For all his bullshit and faults, HE GOT ME… we got each other… and he was one of the few people who never made me feel like my shit was too much. He listened. Then he made me laugh and we would commiserate on how fucked up we both were. It makes me happy knowing he’s with my mom, my son Michael, my nephew Adrien, my dad, my uncles, and so many others… but sometimes it’s hard to shake the sadness and loneliness of them leaving me behind. I’m not alone… but it sure feels like I am.

I don’t want to be that bitter, unhappy woman… but I don’t know how to get off this road. Tomorrow is another day. Hopefully it will be brighter.